Monthly Archives: July 2013

So the day came. They all spent most of the day let loose in the garden having great fun in my flowerbeds. I had to make the call though. Now there is only Nugget and Bugget left. I have learned a lot on this trip and even if I have to fight back the tears writing this and it feels like lives have gone to waste I don’t regret that we did it. I learnt a lot about myself. I used to think getting a drivers licence would be a piece of cake, I told myself I knew already and would probably just need a couple of lessons. When it actually happened I was scared shitless and it took ages.
I go swimming all year around. A few times this winter I pushed the ice blocks away to get in the water and when we got the chickens I thought all along that I could do it when the time came but no. I had to use the lifeline “call a friend”.
I don’t mean to be insensitive comparing losing the cockerels to getting a drivers license but what I’m pointing at is how wrong you can be at knowing yourself. My great grandmother used to drown hedgehogs in the bath and she didn’t hesitate to “take care of “the kittens, this is not something I hoped to carry down the ages, no way! But all along I thought that if we take this on the least thing we could do is follow through, slay and cook a nice chicken roast but I guess I’m too much of a wuss.
They did end up having a great few months though because we bought them, instead of weeks or days, is what I keep telling myself.

Here’s another lithprint. Sookie is the model, I’m not sure what Sookie is yet. Bugget and Nugget are definitely hens and I thought Sook was to but the comb is growing and he/she is taller than the hens but much smaller than the cockerels. Time will tell but for the cockerels the clock is speeding up… Yesterday they kuckeliku’d all day, three of them taking turns getting louder and louder. We are gonna have to get rid of them very soon.
I’m trying to prepare myself mentally for it but even if I’ve know since we got them, it’s not an easy thing.

Perfect darkroom weather! At eight this morning the heavens opened up and there was a crazy thunderstorm with constant lightning. It was so dark outside it looked like nighttime. Nothing to distract me from the darkroom though and now I am happy for that. Some days everything just flows and even if I’ve spend about 8 hours on developing a film and maybe three pictures. it’s three darn good ones!

The lith-printing which is one of my favourite techniques is very slow, it takes about 30-40 minutes to make one picture while constantly agitating (rocking) the tray, in the dark, always wondering -did I put it the right way up? or- did I leave the safety light on? But then the image slowly appear and it leaves you in anguish -shall I take it out, no a bit longer, now, did I leave it too long?… Only takes a few seconds and then it rapidly goes black if you leave it too long. Waterbath, fix and then rinse for and hour.
Sounds like great fun eh? Stay tuned for the results!

Today we used a giftvoucher our friends gave us as a wedding present, mackerel fishing! A boat took us out to sea, perfect weather for it with sunshine and hardly no wind. Even so I took precautions with a sea-sickeness pill beforehand (I went on one of theese trips before as a teenager and puked my guts up for two hours).

We stopped and put our rods in and voila! My whole family had fish on their lines even before I had used my rod(this is where I think -Great I’m not gonna get around to fishing myself just helping everyone else. Gosh! I am such a control freak at times…They managed splendidly!).
We caught so many mackerels in the end that everyone agreed to go back early, probably about 100 plus we got half of some Danish peoples catch. A BIG thank you to my cousin who happened to come around while we were filleting and helped us out.

Lesson of the day : You will not find anyone on the island who wants your mackerel,

five on one line

to the brim

gutting

stalkers

one of the largest

they already have their freezers full. Oh and freshly your own-fished-mackerel tastes the best in the world!

I’ve been far too busy taking it easy, hardly given the barn a second thought and now my deadline has come up, one week to go until exhibition and I wanted to have a floor in the barn. I know it was a very optimistic goal and refuse to get stressed about it. Today I opened up the side doors, which were screwed shut and locked, now there’s light! I started picking up glass, wood and lots more skeletons from the ground so that next step will be digging. A thought struck me though, it would be kind of cool to put a temporary floor, cover maybe a third and leave the rest for people to look at, like an archaeology dig, which also means I get wall space for pictures if the weather is bad, hmmm…

One half of Kalvsund looks like this and the other is densely populated

Two more islands to cross off our list! Yesterday we went to Grötö (Porridge island) and Kalvsund. Grötö was amazing. I’ll absolutely go back there some day!
I loved the peace and quiet (only 88 inhabitants), beautiful houses and gardens, nature and just a general happy feeling. There are no cars on Grötö, instead there’s a wheelbarrow parking place by the ferry. We cycled around it stopping for breaks and taking the scenery in, after an hour we’d circled the island and took the ferry to Kalvsund. Only two more islands to go and we’ve been to all ten.